Akemi Nitahara Reporter Radiojornalismo

Brasilia – At least 200,000 people make a living by using natural resources in the state of Amazonas. They fish, they gather nuts, vegetable oils or fibers. Others harvest fruit, such as açai, or make handicrafts from wood. Some are rubber tappers. In Portuguese, they are engaged in extrativisimo – sustainable exploitation of the forest, without destroying it. Many of them live in what are supposed to be protected areas known as “reservas extrativistas.”

Célia Regina das Neves, who lives in the Reserva Extrativista Mãe Grande, in Curuçá, in the state of Pará, says there are serious problems in the communities due to a lack of government presence. “There is a huge demand for services. There are questions about production, family life, community organization and use of natural resources. But the biggest problem is certainly land ownership,” she declared.

The president of the National Council of Extrativistas, Manoel Silva da Cunha, says the problem is longstanding. He points out that people were given incentives to migrate during the rubber boom (at the beginning of the 20th century) and wound up occupying lands that had owners. “This problem has not been resolved and just gets worse. Today there are ownership disputes even in areas that the federal or state governments have decreed to be conservation units,” he says.

At the ministry of Environment, the director of the Forest Department, João de Deus Medeiros, says the idea is to stimulate harmonious relations between people and the forest. “We support production, work with producers to obtain higher aggregated value and price guarantees. We assist producers place their goods on the market. All this has had interesting results,” he declared.

The director-general of the Brazilian Forest Service, Carlos Hummel, says his organization works to show people that conserving the forest (for exploitation) can generate income.

Meanwhile, the new government program, Brazil Without Misery, will distribute a Green Subsidy (“Bolsa Verde”) of R$300 for families that conserve the environment where they work.

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English

Link - Florestas são fonte de 200 mil famílias que vivem do extrativismo na Amazônia